Spiral Galaxy Messier 83

If our Milky Way were to resemble this one, we certainly would be proud of our home ! The beautiful spiral galaxy Messier 83 [4] is located in the southern constellation Hydra (the Water Snake) and is also known as NGC 5236 and as the Southern Pinwheel galaxy. Its distance is about 15 million light-years. Being about twice as small as the Milky Way, its size on the sky is 11x10 arcmin2...

The image show clumpy, well-defined spiral arms that are rich in young stars, while the disc reveals a complex system of intricate dust lanes. This galaxy is known to be a site of vigorous star formation.